In the story “Sonny’s Blues”, James Baldwin examines the theme of suffering experienced by two African-American relatives as individuals restrained by unemployment, discrimination, drug addiction, imprisonment and unfortunately suicide. It explores the struggle of two brothers, an algebra teacher and his younger brother Sonny. The algebra teacher who is also the narrator remains unnamed throughout the story. The two brothers grew apart as they got older each taking a different path through life, one inflicted with addiction and imprisonment and the other in a steady job with a family.
The Algebra teacher who is relatively well-off between the brothers, can’t seem to understand how his brother Sonny could have possibly fallen so far in life. Active communication is essential in the story of two brothers with different paths taken in life where depression and anguish may over power ones will. The thought to put an end to one’s dear life could be a split second away. The algebra teacher reveals his discoveries through memories of their childhood, of their mother and father and of their Harlem community. In the first part, when the teacher heard of his brother’s imprisonment due to drug abuse, a flood of memories came rushing in and he was in utter denial and disbelief upon thinking what his brother could have been going through (Albert).
While reading and rereading of his brother’s arrest on the subway commute to the high school he works at, the teacher is in disbelief and unnerved for the outcome of his younger brother. Compared to Sonny’s misfortune, his older brother’s life can be seen as average, somewhat stable and far from the life that Sonny has come to live, thus setting them further apart (Albert). Sonny’s brother has a family, job, and a home, he seems to be financially secure while Sonny is drug addiction and abuse as an outlet for the pain he craves to control and has been desperately seeking to extinguish from a young age. The brothers spent years not really getting along. Even following the passing of their father when Sonny was fifteen, the brothers never really got along. Sonny’s brother saw Sonny as the “apple of his father’s eye” and although he does not mention that he is envious of that observation.
Eventually, the Teacher’s new life in marriage separated the two brothers completely and brought them together again upon their mother’s death whose will was for the Teacher to “always take care of his brother” (Albert). Once, his mother shared about the death of his uncle that his father struggled with for quite long. His uncle was not only a victim of hit-and-run but a target of racism and a symbol of the bigotry that lines American history. He died in the street because he was a black drunk man being made fun about by white men (Albert). The mother reminded the Teacher that her revelation is not meant “to make you scared or bitter or to make you hate anybody” but truly for the sake of his younger brother Sonny. Unconsciously, this is a revelation the Teacher would later acknowledge himself. The memory is as clear as in her mother’s own narrative: “His brother got killed when he was a little younger than you are now”. His father does not speak about it because it was too painful. Death because of the color of one’s skin is just a despicable truth in the contemporary times.
After the mother died, the Teacher assumes the responsibility of taking care of Sonny to honor her wishes. As the Teacher picks up Sonny who is finally released after seven years in prison and long silence, they passed through the “killing streets of their childhood… streets that hadn’t changed” (Lobb). It is quite nostalgic and seems an awkward moment for the Teacher as the both stew in the reminiscent piece of their childhood. While the Teacher observes that “though housing projects jutted up…houses exactly like the houses of our past yet dominated the landscape.” This brings up the hard question of change. In the teacher is anxious to know whether Sonny can ever change his perspective of a future. he saves his patience treating his brother as a child who will someday mature and realize things for himself.
It takes Sonny running away to manage things on his for the Teacher to build his trust upon his brother that he can handle himself and in fact make a successful career out of his passion. He and his wife Isabel as well as Isabel’s family supported Sonny by providing him the facility of home and a piano. Of course, his rebellious manner did end up hurting Isabel, her family and most importantly, his brother not only out of humiliation but of sheer frustration in understanding his thoughts, attitudes and character (Albert). For Sonny, music was not just his passion but his way of expression, communication and all-around redemption. Until now, his brother thought it was a pass time that was not truly serious, and which does not promise a good living. Sonny was consistent with such dream despite his brother’s qualms, his main frustration then in Harlem was to get away from drugs. Sonny felt needed a clear space to himself to think and listen, a place he sadly couldn’t find. (Albert)
This story gives readers a view of just how the influence of suffering not only as a general experience, the unique impact it has in every individual. Like any family bond, the two brothers experience the fears of separation, drug abuse and unemployment in their life from early childhood all the way up to their adulthood. It wasn’t until towards the end of the story that the Teacher began to understand how Sonny might have felt not getting letters from older brother during his hardest time. This revelation by the teacher had to come through the tragic passing of his little girl, it took for him to feel the pain of his hardest time to think about what his brother might have been going through.